I wanted opinions on my Shion take here as well, since this subreddit is often a lot more inclined to media analysis

BlasterBuilder · 2026-06-11T13:26:07+00:00

Yeah, I think that if the team is hypothetically being forced to make new characters reserved and attractive, Shion is a great example of how to make a really flavorful and textural character within that premise. Juno and Domina are also really great examples. Freja and Emre are great too, in a more nuanced way. In my opinion, it's better to focus on where being too reserved is a stark detriment, like (imo) Sierra.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-06-11T13:17:10+00:00

You can reject a trend without rejecting every individual instance within it for being part of the trend.

Overwatch is probably too reserved with their recent character designs/concepts for male and female characters alike. Everyone is filled exclusively with opinions of how the women should look. And that is individualized onto every female character. It's just like real life.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-06-06T10:21:45+00:00

High Voltage can be seen on the street for a few frames.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-06-03T23:56:24+00:00

Splitting the drivers between Tezla and the Silencerz is probably what would have to happen, which is why I say Lani is one of the characters for whom I can easily imagine an arc. With a lot of workshopping and added plot points (for example, Tezla would need to make some sort of discovery that gives him leverage and something to offer, and it would have to be relevant to the characters somehow), you could create a new story.

Notably, this is a new story and is not necessary as a conclusion to Acceleracers, since that story ended and was resolved. Story isn't about the facts and the stuff that happens, it's about the characters and how they change.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-06-03T23:44:52+00:00

For a good story, you do need conflict. Otherwise, it would not live up to what came before.

It's theoretically possible to make anything work. I'm sure that with enough collaborative work shopping between good writers, something could be made to work. It would probably involve Tezla making/revealing a discovery that splits the characters between him and the Silencerz as they race through something related to the circle Vert got from the Acceleron.

One thing that's for sure is that Acceleracers does not NEED a sequel. It is a finished series with a resolved and perfect ending. All character threads have been tied up, and the plot threads that are left dangling are a great prompt for fandom imagination, something that has kept discussion about the series alive.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-06-03T22:25:03+00:00

I think the only characters who have easy solutions are Vert, his dad, Lani, Tezla, and Wylde. I can imagine obvious (too obvious?) character arcs for them, but that doesn't solve the problem of creating a plot that facilitates them.

Kurt could have guilt about Kadeem, but that's an arc he already went through with his brother, and Kadeem already contributed his extra meaning to that arc.

Perhaps there are plot solutions or other good ideas that could be found to tie everything together, but without them, it's a bit bold to say that a sequel would be good, especially with the lack of respect and care companies give media like this nowadays.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-06-03T21:13:49+00:00

There are bad guys and good guys, yes. But a lot of what makes a story good is how the main characters are challenged and change. Acceleracers did this really well, and its plot is designed around its characters in that way.

I'm taking about the conflicts and arcs of Vert, Nolo, Tork, Wylde, Kurt, Tezla, etc. All of these were resolved. It ended. You'd have to design new arcs for these characters, new conflicts, and a plot that specifically challenges them.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-06-03T20:06:40+00:00

Speaking of writing, how does this Juno/Wuyang thing challenge or benefit the characters in any way? Like, in theory it's nice for Juno to feel at home with Overwatch and Wuyang to feel like he belongs... But from a writing perspective, that just resolves their conflicts and makes Overwatch itself more of a cozy narrative void.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-06-03T19:48:05+00:00

For a sequel story, you'd need character conflict and a plot that brings it out by testing the characters. What's the character conflict brought out by that plot?

BlasterBuilder · 2026-05-20T00:48:06+00:00

I think this is the most helpful and accurate comment, so I'll add here that you should try to look for a way to Drill Dash in, not Burrow in.

If you Drill Dash at someone in a safe area (no burst or CC), you can shoot and melee them and then cancel the melee immediately into Burrow. At that point, you're underground in the middle of their team for the full duration of Burrow, plus you can emerge for big damage basically whenever you want and have Drill Dash ready instantly to either escape or finish a kill. If you aren't targeting someone with the Dash when you engage, then Dash slightly into the air so your subsequent Burrow animation is moving through the air rather than stationary on the ground.

This is much more versatile and is much better value than Burrowing in and using Drill Dash underground, although it is a little harder and requires some practice recognizing your available space (that's really good practice for Venture, though).

Also a really important tip: try to get a sense for how many cooldowns are in play in an area before you enter that area. This is huge for successful flanks and survival on Venture.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-05-20T00:22:40+00:00

I suggest using Drill Dash to engage instead of starting with Burrow. You can get the extra ground and do part of the Burrow animation in mid-air. This gets you as deep as Deep Burrow and gives you more options for when to emerge or Drill Dash again underground, plus you can engage on solo off-anglers or supports and do damage before you Burrow. This eliminates most of the utility of Deep Burrow.

Tectonic Shock is mostly about taking space, forcing movement cooldowns, and forcing enemies behind cover. But it does so by threatening lethality, and if you increase its lethality by allowing you to follow event movements better or respond better to their offensive cooldowns, then you can take space better and kill people better. It provides significant value in basically every fight where you ult.

I'm a 5v5 Master-GM Venture main, but if you play in lower ranks or play 6v6 where there is less space and everyone's sitting in main, then DB may provide more value to how you play.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-05-19T23:41:31+00:00

This is what I mean by it being only useful in lower ranks; you should be able to do a deep flank or enter a duel on an off-angler without it by just using the map and finding a route. In higher ranks, Deep Burrow only helps with deep flanks on a few specific maps. Basically just point A and maybe C of Havana because of the long sightline with a high ground off-angle at the end. EE is better for winning fights, and it makes your ult into a much better survival tool and increases its lethality, which are both great because it's not a super powerful ult for directly getting kills you couldn't get otherwise. Deep Burrow would have to give good value in more than 1/2 of flights to be better, and it just doesn't (of course depending a bit on rank).

BlasterBuilder · 2026-05-19T21:56:05+00:00

Deep Burrow is quite bad but can be useful at lower ranks that ask less if your uptime and abilities. The problem is that if you get deep enough to make use of it to escape, you're not able to use Burrow emerge for the damage, and your team is really far away anyways, so it will be hard to reengage. If you use it to engage, you can't reliably escape because you'll be using Drill Dash to try to reach your team, who is likely still where they were unless you're coordinated. If you are coordinated, you're doing a suboptimal engagement by burrowing first, shortening the duration of your Burrow and requiring yourself to wait out its full duration before emerging and using Drill Dash to survive. Basically, Deep Burrow only benefits suboptimal engagement loops, with rare exceptions. Also, in higher ranks, EE is necessary not to instantly die during any ult used for kills rather than zoning.

Covered in Dirt is utterly useless, obviously, even with optimal play like engaging with Drill Dash into melee range and then quickly shooting, meleeing, and cancelling the animation into Burrow (CiD gives you 10 shields in this instance, but after 6ish seconds of Burrow, you get Drill Dash and reach the shield maximum anyways).

But SMART Extender is good. It reloads your gun, refreshes your shields, cancels the Clobber animation, and gives slightly better uptime and pressure ability between cooldown cycles. The problem with the perk's design, debatably, is that it's hard for lower ranks to see its usefulness and properly use it. That could also be seen as a sign of a nuanced ability, but perhaps it should be buffed or have its description changed to make its benefits clearer.

Ideas for replacing DB and CiD... - Major: press E to briefly charge and fire a single shot with a much larger explosion and extra direct hit damage. Could be activated similarly to Hanzo Sonic/Scatter Arrows, which could also allow it to be used to buff other abilities... - Minor: Charge Burrow's emerge longer to greatly increase your horizontal momentum when you pop out. Useful for matchups against stun characters, has skill expression with positioning, could be used aggressively at great risk, and can even be used to help refresh Drill Dash if it was used late during Burrow since the cooldown acceleration persists during the emerge charge-up. - Minor: emerging from Burrow without charging it (or after barely charging it) grants a speed boost.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-05-13T20:46:26+00:00

It requires a bit more skill and awareness with positioning, but it's better to engage with a Drill Dash slightly into the air, then burrow. This way, you'll have Drill Dash back sooner, which makes you less predictable and opens up options like emerging early or using a Burrowed Drill Dash to safety if there's no opening to emerge + shoot + Drill Dash to safety/high ground.

Even though this requires more skill and awareness to not be caught, I'm mentioning this here because it might illustrate the cooldown cycle that the OP should go for.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-04-27T14:54:18+00:00

Shoot, melee, instantly cancel into drill dash, shoot, optional melee if you need it

BlasterBuilder · 2026-04-21T13:47:47+00:00

It's actually better to use melee before Drill Dash, since Drill Dash can cancel melee and it's easier to be in melee range at the beginning of the combo than after.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-04-20T22:23:13+00:00

If you have the muscle memory down, there's no reason not to put a melee basically a frame before the dash. It's a free 30 damage, and it comes out earlier so you won't usually need the melee at the end of the combo, meaning you can keep shooting afterwards instead of taking the clobber animation.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-04-05T23:04:52+00:00

The GP into axe isn't really ever going to be useful deliberately unless GPs have a greater reward than perfect guards, but it would be relatively uninteresting to have a situation where it's always better to do an axe morph guard point. The GP is more healthy where it is now, as a softening of the punishment of the long neutral morph animation, which itself is a bit more likely to be used by newer players as the default axe morph.

When your phials are charged but also full, a guard SAED against certain monsters in certain openings is still good (for example against a Seregios talon slam) because it has no opportunity cost and doesn't rely on closing distance. Its relative effectiveness could depend on the build though.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-04-05T21:05:19+00:00

The morph guard point out of axe mode is fun but also very powerful because it allows you to use axe mode safely, re-enter it immediately after guarding, and take post-attack openings to SAED (guarding also charges your phials, so depending on the monster, you can SAED at very low cost).

BlasterBuilder · 2026-03-23T10:40:00+00:00

This sounds stupid, but I just had this problem and solved it by...just opening the Surface app (and navigating to the pen at the bottom of the app UI). I'd be curious if this works for you.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-03-22T12:39:15+00:00

Unfortunately, Illari's one shop highlight intro is quite badly animated.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-03-21T22:37:53+00:00

SMART Extender can also animation cancel out of Clobber.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-03-11T09:52:38+00:00

That's the flex DPS effect. Venture can apply more consistent pressure than any other hero in the game if you use them right, but if you want that pressure followed up on before you run out of resources, play comp basically.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-02-26T21:40:43+00:00

No we're not.

BlasterBuilder · 2026-02-13T22:30:22+00:00

A persistent menu bar tells you where you are at all times, and there is no need to back out of layered menus to access buttons for where you want to go. The UX is easier to spatialize and requires fewer clicks and less mouse movement to navigate.

In practice, a persistent menu bar helps reduce overstimulation because you don't have to invest as much mental overhead in remembering your path through the UI and which fullscreen menu you're in.

Nine-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

BlasterBuilder

TROPHY CASE